Saturday, March 27, 2010

Smack Down: Pro-ObamaCare Doctor Speaks Up

In yesterday's post I shared some quotes from Massachusetts state treasurer, Timothy P. Cahill. Cahill says Massachusetts is for all intents and purposes already on ObamaCare, and the state is going bankrupt as a result:

Our experience in Massachusetts tells us that [Obamacare] will burden future taxpayers with unfunded liabilities they cannot afford. Health-care inflation will continue. Mandates will increase insurance premiums. And the deficit will reach frightening levels as the law's costs greatly exceed the projections of its advocates.

I took this quote, and a few others from Cahill's Wall Street Journal article, and posted them on a health care website. A physician responded to me thusly:

You seem to be saying that if many American sicken, suffer, and die because they can't pay their medical bills, and if taxpayers object to paying these bills, then you believe these people should sicken, suffer, and die. That's the general feeling of doctors on this forum, and it strikes me as heartless.

With all due respect, good sir, this is one of the most shallow and simplistic arguments I've heard since 5th grade. If this kind of thinking is representative of a significant percentage of educated people, is there any reason to ask how we lost control of the health care system to the Federal Government?

Here's the response I posted on the health care website:

M****,

I'd like to see some evidence that the Democrats' health care agenda will result in less sickness, suffering, and death. Where's the evidence that the federal government can allocate health care resources more judiciously and more humanely than everyone else?

I'd like to know how empowering the Federal Government of the United States at the expense of individual patients is going to improve health care. Are politicians and bureaucrats uniquely virtuous? Are politicians and bureaucrats uniquely wise and knowledgeable?

Please explain how transferring more wealth and more power into the hands of a smaller number of politicians and bureaucrats can be expected to reduce waste, fraud and abuse.

You seem to have an unshakable trust in the Federal Government, M****. What is the basis of this zealous faith? What did the Federal bureaucratic machine do to earn your loyalty?

I think the Federal Government is as fallible as any other institution...and its future capacity to produce systemic failures and to perpetuate corruption will be proportional to its growing enormity.

I love my Uncle Milty! Thank you for posting that video.I'd like to think that Donahue, with his furrowed brow is really tyring to grasp what Friedman is telling him. Deep down, I think Phil can't help but think he WOULD do better -- wipe out poverty, etc. -- if only he had more of other people's money to do it with. That's the problem with liberalism. They think 'they care' (about the poor, etc.) and that that should be enough. "They care!"

We all need to do our part: Their part is "WE (liberals) CARE!" And OUR part (non-liberals) is supposed to be to fork over all our wealth so that they can fix things with it.

Liberals CARE!!And conservatives need to give up everything to the one's who care & know what's best for everyone. That, in the liberal mind, is a perfect 50-50 partnership.

Don't you get it?? They CARE!That qualifies them to control all the wealth of the world.

We 'don't care' about the poor -- so they think. And that qualifies us to have all our wealth taken from us.

oh, sorry if I got carried away! He's only "Uncle Milty" in our respect and affection for him -- not literally. (You may not be ancient enough to remember the term "Uncle Milty" which actually referred to Milton Berle. ) Now my obscure references are having obscure references. -heh